


Michonne's Offer

by JoCarthage



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, PWP, Seriously this is basically a 10000 word fill to a kink-meme and it's total PWP, Warning for a very brief mention that Michonne survived sex abuse in her home, Warning for brief mentions of Daryl's abusive father
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-14
Updated: 2014-02-14
Packaged: 2018-01-12 07:05:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1183326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoCarthage/pseuds/JoCarthage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What you need?”</p><p>Propping his gun against the fence Daryl stretched his hands behind his back, pain and tension jerking out of his shoulders. He kept his eyes down as he kept raising his arms up. </p><p>Michonne stepped around him, hooking a thumb under his interlocked hands, waiting for his brief nod of ascent, and began to lift, pausing, letting him breath into the stretch. He kept breathing and she kept pushing until he felt cool strips and hot flashes working their way down his shoulders. </p><p>She lowered his hands slowly and he tangled his fingers around hers, squeezing hot for a second before letting go, letting his hands swing in front of him, tingling in his shoulders and the sides of his fingers, harsh but good.</p><p>“I ain’t never had sex. I thought you could show me.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Michonne's Offer

**Author's Note:**

> Daryl loses his virginity to Michonne. This was a fill to a kink-meme: http://twd-kinkmeme.livejournal.com/5396.html?thread=7112724#t7112724 OP also asked: Bonus points if he's timid/nervous and unsure of himself and Michonne guides him through his first time.
> 
> I don't know what happened. I just kept writing, and they were so much fun to write, and well. Yes. This is 10k of PWP.

“I’ve got a problem.” Daryl’s eyes never stop scanning the perimeter through the chain link.

“Yeah?” She quirks her shoulder but figures anything he has to say can’t be more important that sighting down the center of that walker's forehead. The rifle pounds into her shoulder and the walker falls. Her quadrant empty, she props a hip against the fence, tucking the weapon behind her neck.

“Yeah.” He holds his breath, then lets it out, tickling the trigger at the count of three. He sights again, pulls again, then again, arms steady through. He flips the gun around and lets it hang, weighting his arms down more than it should. He rolls the piece in his hands.

“Rick and Lorie, they’re getting there.” He said. She nodded, letting him get to his point sideways. It didn’t pay to push. 

“And Glen, Maggie, they’re tight.” Another nod and she slid her hand up and down the stock, smoothing dust off the wood.

“Food’s all stocked up.”

“Yep.” Maybe vocalizing will help Daryl move this show along.

“Fence ain’t got holes, guns got ammo. Shit’s gotten stable-like.”

“Yeah.” The man was sweating and it wasn’t the evening sun. There was something gnawing under his breastbone, she could see it.

“I sleep at night.” He turned, back leaning against the fence, sun on his bent neck. He kept eye-contact with the blank windows of the prison.

“I couldn’t see that, couldn’t see it at all,” he hitched a breath “When Merle was around. I couldn’t see a point past tomorrow.” He looked at her sideways. “I didn’t do the things normal kids did, because what was the point.”

He pivoted, putting his full weight squarely between his feet.

“What I’m saying is, I gotta catch up. Do some shit I meant to do in the before-times, that I never got to.”

“You have something you never learned, Daryl?”  
  
Michonne turned her entire body, shifting her weight to standing, breaths passing a bare foot between them.

“Yeah.”

He dipped his head down, hand moving easy up the stock of her weapon to brush a thumb over her cheek, breath close to hers.

“And I think you might be the one to teach me.”  
  
She hitched a breath. She looked at him, skin and all. Considered. She nodded and his hand fell steadily down, not rejected, just paused.

“Kay, but you’re going to need to be specific. What you need?”

Propping his gun against the fence Daryl stretched his hands behind his back, pain and tension jerking out of his shoulders. He kept his eyes down as he kept raising his arms up. 

Michonne stepped around him, hooking a thumb under his interlocked hands, waiting for his brief nod of ascent, and began to lift, pausing, letting him breath into the stretch. He kept breathing and she kept pushing until he felt cool strips and hot flashes working their way down his shoulders. 

She lowered his hands slowly and he tangled his fingers around hers, squeezing hot for a second before letting go, letting his hands swing in front of him, tingling in his shoulders and the sides of his fingers, harsh but good.

“I ain’t never had sex. I thought you could show me.”

She stayed behind him and caught notice of the flares of blond the dusty sun brought out in his hair. His head was bowed, bringing a stretch to his back in a long curve. She nodded and they made their way back towards supper.

—

It was three days before she mentioned it, since Daryl sure as hell didn’t seem to be ready to.

Michonne was leaning against the railing on the stairs, looking down over Daryl as he finished his piece of the day’s heated beans and kibabed rabbit. His hair wasn’t perfectly covering his head, as scraggly and twisted up as usual, but she thought it looked less strung out than when they’d been on the run. It wasn’t something she usually noticed.

“How do you want to do this?”

Daryl’s head ducked and if she didn’t know better, she would have sworn his neck flushed.

“Nevermind it.”

Michonne decided to let him stew for a bit. After he dunked and scrubbed his plate then set it out to dry, she cocked her head at the door, walking out to take in the stars and check the walkers.

She was waiting, arms braced above her head, forearms on the fence and fingers hanging on, body slack as she let the her weight pull the kinks out of her shoulders. He took a moment to look at her, spare body highlighted with a few well-placed softening curves. Her edges were smoothed over by the lack of light, but if anything she was starker. Unrelenting.

He hitched hip against the fence, bending it in as she let her body follow the curve, adding sway to her spine and bringing her to her toes. She took a breath, pushing her stomach against her back muscles until they settled into a new order. Then she eased her weight back, standing on her two feet, shifting her attention to the still man beside her.

“What was that about?”

He didn’t answer, just looked at her.

If this was Ty or nearly anyone else from the camp she would have known they were fucking with her. And what she would do about it. But Daryl hadn’t ever been the ogling type, hadn’t made the obligatory end-of-the-world pass. It was by grace of his past she allowed him silence enough to continue.

“It’s not something I know how to start.”  
  
She didn’t blanch or let her confusion show on her face. If he wanted to talk it out, she had less patience than most anyone, but she could give him a few sentences to compose himself.

“It ain’t that it’s now or never, more, things are calm. It won’t ruin anything, if,” but he couldn’t seem to complete the thought. Michonne chuckeled and Daryl stiffened, stepped back, face slamming shut.

She schooled her face to a more serious plane, and tried to speak softly: “If what? Nothing is going to happen in sex that’s going to ruin anything here.”

His eyes were firmly attached to the ground near her right foot, but she caught a nearly-imperceptible nod. She took the final step and hooked a calloused thumb under his chin.

When she got his eyes she kept them. She saw fear rise like sun itself in them, cloudy defiance, sparking curiosity, and there, there it was, a glow attraction. She wasn’t just a teacher, she was a desired one. That was better than she’d expected.

“We start however you want to start.” His eyes widened and if she hadn't been staring their depths down she would have missed the panicked flick across them.

“Why don’t you think some about what and how and when and let me know? I’ll be out for my next run for a few days starting tomorrow morning. Sometime after that.”

Daryl nodded, pushing her hand and flicking it off his chin. Their shoulders brushed and for the first time she thought about it as a form of intimacy, not hoof-scuffing intimidation. She let the stars and walkers see her small smile as it formed on her face, before it faded and she began to think through her next route out.

—

“So.”

Michonne had hauled a load of sheets and a pillow to a deserted-but-clear section of the prison. This was one of the few rooms they’d modified significantly from the prison bunk-beds. Using a blowtorch and a significant amount of patience, one of the camp-members had sheered off the top bunk. Daryl was sure there had been some out loud excuse about needing easy access if they were carrying someone in, but the soft-leather someone had carefully sewed around the metal posts and the bookshelves full of extra clean sheets made clear the room’s intended purpose. It didn’t hurt it was far enough from the normally inhabited portions of the prison to be functionally soundproof. She’d had quiet sex and she’d had loud sex, and whatever this was going to be a first for Daryl, it wasn’t going to be muffled by a musty pillow or her calloused hand.

“So.”

Daryl stood beside her, looking at the clean sheets with the folded blanket at the bottom of the bed. It was just after dinner, when the summer sun still gave them some chance of seeing each other, but all of their tasks were completed.

Michonne turned to him, weight balanced between her legs, hands loose at her sides.

“What do you want to cover today in Michonne’s special sex class?”

Daryl coughed and she held her temper, letting him walk his way up to it.

“I think we could start with kissing, anything with hands. Figure out how that goes.”  
  
“Ok.”

She stepped into the cell and pivoted, walking backwards until her back hit the wall. He followed, but stood stock-still in the middle of the room, outside of an arm’s reach from her.

“You ok?” She asked, head cocked.

“Yeah, it’s just.”

“Awkward?”

“Yeah.”  


“Well, it is going to be weird, until it isn’t. I can start.”

His eyes trapped by the rutted concrete floor he nodded. She pulled a cloak of a sex over her war-lined soul and swayed up to him. She traced a hand up his bare arm, feeling the hair stick up and track her movements. She grabbed his chin between her thumb and forefinger, then held him still for a brush of lips.

She let herself move into him, rough smells surrounding her, her shoulder brushing his, then when his arm started to move behind her body she stepped fully into him, hips to hips, her breasts flattening against her chest with the pressure of his body. She slipped her right foot between his and pivoted her hip, giving him a rush of friction. He groaned and she kept the motion going with her tongue, following the sound back into his body. He tasted of cleaned teeth and that night’s stew. She appreciated the effort but wanted a grittier taste. She pulled away from his mouth and licked his neck. There it was. Sweat and dirt and the wax he used on his crossbow. She licks again.

Daryl stilled when they stopped kissing, but when she didn’t react negatively to his taste, he started moving his arm up behind her back, thumb lazily wandering along her muscles, coming back to grip her bicep before undulating down her spine. 

She let the pressure of his hand sway her hips even closer to his, and kissed his mouth again, licking into his warmth. Lips leading the way in hungry brushes, she stepped backwards, encouraging him to get closer to the bed. He followed and when her shins bumped the frame he pressed in a bit more, arm above her head, holding himself up on the bunk. His other hand, now free, lightly traced down her breastbone to her stomach, where he paused.

She grinned and took the pause as as good a time as any to start talking again.

“So, hands this time?”  
  
“Yeah,” he said, voice deeper than it had been before, whiskey-harsh. He started to edge his fingers between her stomach and her jeans when she stopped him, pressing his hand flat to her exposed skin.

“What do you know about how this works?” She figured blunt was best. Daryl didn’t strike her as a man who treasured pretension.

He took a breath, pulling himself back into his skin.

“You’re going to want me to touch you, soft and then hard, rubbing and getting you slick, then slipping inside.” His hand was held inches away, wavering towards her, hand still, but face coming close to hers, cheek rubbing height of her cheekbone.

“Mmm,” she said, “that sounds good, but what do you know about clits?”

She felt his face redden against hers. She kept her smile to herself as much as possible, but kept the pressure on his hand.

“It feels good to you when I press it, indirect-like.” His voice was a little more uncertain, but that was pretty much better information than a solid 25% of her former lovers, so she’d go with it.

“Good to start with. I don’t like direct touching on it, though some might. We’re not going to start with penetration, and I’ll let you know when before you go there. You should also expect to be touching me in other ways.” She traced a hand up his shirt to rub her thumb across a nipple. He didn’t gasp, he was too tightly-wound for that, even in this state, but at the contact a looseness left his body and was replaced with a certain tense expectation.

“Erogenous zones. Name them.” He huffed at her school-marm tone, but let it go. If it worked to get him up-to-speed, he’d go with it.

“Uh, lips, hands, feet, ears, nipples, cunts, backs of knees, thighs, necks, bellies?” She’d stiffened a bit at the c-word, but wasn’t sure if she was offended.

“And for men?” She didn’t know if this knowledge would be useful to him in practical application, but it was good to see how far he knew.

“Nipples, dicks, balls, hands, feet, backs of knees, lips, ears, thighs, necks,” his voice stuttered out, and he seemed to be trying for a way to say what he was saying. She let him strain, then slipped her hand behind him, keeping it flat and placed it on his ass.

“Asses. Pereniums. Prostates.” He nodded and she let it go. If he wanted to ask questions, she would answer them, but she wasn’t going to push him, particularly not on their first, whatever this was.

“We’ll stick with the basics. Lips, nipples, cunt, cock, thighs, stomachs, nothing in back and nothing inside until explicitly invited. Sound good?”  
  
He nodded again and let out a harsh breath.

He sounded uncertain, but he tried: “Is there anything particular to you I should know?”

“Let’s stick to vanilla shit and we’ll go from there.”

“Okay.”

The heat between them had banked but Daryl moving his hand up Michonne’s torso took care of that. She hissed in a breath and felt her pores open, ready to track every movement of his fingers. He traced over her ribs, then let a thumb trail over to her breast. She’d expected a certain amount of roughness, it wasn't like Daryl specialized in fine-tuned responses to physical situations, but maybe he did. Maybe the exact angle he ducked his head when Merle came his way, the precise arc of his bow as he drew down on an intruder conveyed exactly the amount of submission and fuck you he intended, respectively.

But his touch was light, exploring. She couldn’t get much of the detail of his hand through her thick shirt, so she started unbuttoning it. He ignored her progress and dipped to kiss her neck, tasting his way up the tendon and kissing around her ear. Just as he slipped her lobe between his lips, she got the last button undone, with no small amount of franticness. His hand slipped inside her shirt, but rather than going to her breast and stealing her breath, he felt her pull it in as her ribs expanded and sunk back down. He made his way back to her lips and dipped back in, keeping to teasing brushes of lips, not pushing too hard. He was trying to lead, but not unilaterally.

Needing him to rev back up again, she went through his buttons, pulling them fast and hard. She got a long strip of skin to work with and pulled away from his mouth to kiss along his collarbone, bending down to lick. His shoulders fell back and his head tipped back, and when she swooped over to his nipple he let out a groan. She grinned and kept going, pulling and swirling, not teasing, maximizing sensation. 

But he didn’t rev and get frantic again, and after a moment he bent his knees and brushed her chin with his hand, pulling her up to kiss again. She took his signals and let him lead the timing, though she shucked her shirt behind her onto the bed. She kept kissing him, teasing her tongue in and trying to think through the tastes and textures, savoring them. She shifted her hips forward and got the reassuring pressure of his full cock against her hip. Taking this as encouragement, she slid her hands up and down his chest, tracing up his ribs, then pushing back, heading for his spine—

Then Daryl was across the cell, fist wiping off his mouth, eyes stuck to the corner of the room. His breath was elevated, shoulders tense, hunched over so his open shirt gapped, leaving a black shadow across his chest.

Michonne held up her hands in the universal sign for _not a threat_. She waited until Daryl met her eyes, keeping herself apart, though the loss of his heat brought on a rough return of her haunted loneliness.

“I need to keep my shirt on.” Daryl said, eyes still stuck to the place where the concrete wall met the concrete floor.

“Ok.” Michonne said, hands still raised.

Daryl didn't say anything, and his shudders only got higher around his ears.  


“Do you want to talk about it?” Michonne asked.

A twitch of the head, something like a shake, and then nothing more. He was stiff and still. She crossed the space, and placed a cooled hand on his chest.

“Ok.” She said. She bent down and presser her mouth to the skin around her fingers, kissing between their curves and over her nails. She could taste earth and the wax of her wakazashi handle. She got down to the curve of her palm and she lifted it away. Daryl moved forward at the sudden influx of air against his skin and swayed into her space. 

She kept kissing as his hands drifted, finding a place behind her head. She felt him start to touch her dreads, hesitant, fingers slipping between them and trailing through them. She appreciated he had to good sense not to wind them around his fingers, but she eased back anyway, standing up straight with a twinge in her spine. His face was back to being open, eyes bright with anticipation. 

He surged forward. Back was the passion, the close kissing, the exploring with lips and tongue and hips and hands. She sunk into him, rubbing her hands up his chest and then down, gripping his thighs before pressing her hips against his, rubbing, giving him a taste of the friction she hoped they would be getting to soon. He grunted at the quick contact and then gasped when she got to work on the button and zipper of his jeans. She got it open enough and thought about just reaching in and gripping him, but she decided to take a bit more time. She peeled his jeans back, pushing until he was bare to the tops of his thighs. She knew underwear had been one of the first conveniences to get dropped during the apocalypse but she still appreciated the reminder.

He was slimmer than she’d expected, but a dark color, straight with the slightest of flares at the head. She reached down and stifled a moan at the feeling of his balls in her hand. His reaction was less reserved. His head dropped forward, his hands dropped from behind her head, his mouth slid open. She rolled them in her palm and his entire body undulated. She grinned. This was fun.

He took that moment to tune back in and caught her lips, giving her less space to work with but more contact. He started heading towards her waist, rubbing from front to back, slowly getting his hands under her shirt. She braced her hand behind his back on the wall, working his balls, beginning to tease his base with her thumb.

Daryl was trying to keep it together. The sensation of her sword-calloused hand around him was mesmerizing and he was having trouble keeping track of events apart from knowing how good it felt to be in her hands. He tried to keep his hands moving along her back, through her long hair, for the form of the thing if nothing else. But all he could think of was how she felt and how much he wanted to get off.

A few more moments of this and slips and slides of his personality began to reassert themselves. His fingers on her back turned a little harder, trailing his blunt fingertips down her spine, feeling every see in her jacket and every bump in her too-spare ribs. Though he could barely breath from the pleasure of her hand on him, he tried to get going reciprocating. He didn’t know how capable he would be when they were done and he wanted to get a good head start how.

He worked his hands between them, slipping open her jeans and trailing his fingers through her hair. The coils were tighter around his fingers than what he found on himself, but were all the smoother for their denseness. He traced his fingers down, but just as he was about to slip the tip of his finger between her folds, his hand caught painfully in the zipper of her undone jeans. Her breath hitched and she groaned at the loss of potential contact. She slipped her hand free of his only to yank her pants below her hips, offering him full and free access to her cunt.

She braced her legs apart and grinned up at Daryl, inviting him in, to explore and touch and make her feel as good as she was making him feel. She moved a knee forward to brush against the inside of his, the encourage him to spread a little bit wider. She slipped her hand between his thighs again, rolling his balls in the palm of her hand.

Daryl hooked into the rhythm immediately. He began to slip his finger between her folds, to give her something to thrust against, with every push from his fingers he was rewarded with an equal push from her.

Daryl realized he was close with jolt. The kissing, the touching, her smell, her feel on him, the brushes of his cock against her bunched-up jeans, it was all overwhelming him towards that sensation cascade. He gulped in a breath to try to hold it back but it just kept building in his bones. He stifled out:  
  
“I’m getting close,”

Michonne just hummed and _finally,_ moved her hand up to his cock, gripping and stroking it, keeping to a firm pace. He began bucking up into her hand, not caring how it looked, just chasing that feeling, that fullness he knew was coming. When she tucked her head into his shoulder and whispered:

“Just come, you can do it, I know, I’m here,”

He rocked apart, bottoming out into her hand, muscles dancing, cum on her jeans, a bit on the floor, more on her hand and wrist. She kept touching him, not setting a pace but just keeping the sensations going for him. Eventually she slowed and then stopped, sliding her hand to cup his ass and pull him into her body, letting him bury his head in her hair and just breath her in. All through this, his hand was still down her pants, fingers still between her folds. She had only one of his breaths, a bit more intentional than the one before it, as warning before he started moving.

This was a clearer now he wasn't distracted by his own pleasure. His fingers didn’t push too hard, but he used the heel of his palm to stimulate the muscles around her clit. He kept enough pressure, just enough to start her filling, get her ready to get going again. She made a pleased sound and he took that as encouragement enough. His other hand crept beneath her shirt, kept close to her skin by its tight fit, but still with a little bunching and a little wiggling he managed to get his fingertips below the swell of her breast. 

Now needing his touch, needing more stimulation, she reached up and fumbled her remaining buttons open. Her shirt gaped open, breasts hanging firm in the space now allowed them. Her breasts were exposed to the air for the first time in a few days and the slight movement of air currents was enough to tighten her nipples and bring goose bumps traipsing down her arms. She leaned forward a bit, giving the clearest permission she could without words, and Daryl didn’t need to be told twice. He scooped his hand around her breast, thumb and forefinger just around her nipple, not squeezing, not touching yet, just enough a low keen slunk its way out of her mouth. She could feel his grin against her hair and wanted to swat him for his self-satisfaction, but couldn’t be bothered just now.

He began to move his hand against her, fingers sliding between her folds, the indirect pressure just right on her clit. He moved closer, until his hips were near hers and began rocking with her. She got it and began rocking with him, his hand pushing tighter against her as she got closer to him, then just as it got to be nearly too much, back again, a slow and building rhythm. She was so focused on his hand between her thighs it was a surprise when his thumb started to brush her nipple. 

The first rub was nearly too much—her body contracted around the feeling, uneasy with penned arousal. The next brought sparks and the one after that sent them in runnels down her torso, to her thighs, until the sensations from between her legs and her breast where roiling together in her gut, mixing, amplifying each other and throwing her towards conclusion.

She eased her hand between them, placing it over his and easing his middle finger back. Just as the tips of their touching fingers entered her she flew, body flying apart in small shivers, breath harsh with withheld cries. She kept breathing, head still straight. She hadn’t collapsed into him, but it was a near thing. His face was still buried in her hair, breath warm against her scalp, hands loosely holding her. She hitched a breath and started to move away and he pulled his hand away from hers.

He stepped back and around to sit on the bunk, hitching his pants up and buttoning up. He sat and hung his hands in his lap, eyes soft but still focused on the floor, getting his heartbeat under control. She looked at him for a moment, the tired arc of his back and the dirt on the back of his neck, and she sat beside him, not touching, but still closer than she would have before this. She rocked back to hitch her pants up, then zip, and began the slow process of getting her shirt back in order.

The whole time he kept his eyes on his hands, fingers washing each other less in a sign of nervousness than as if he was carefully layering precious lotion over his knuckles and wanted to make sure it was as rubbed-in as possible. When she finally got her clothing back in order she slowly laid a hand down on his shoulder.

“We can talk now.” Daryl didn’t say anything but he didn’t hurry out.

“What parts of that did you like?” She started, figuring they could go through the highlights first.

His hands made an abortive movement at his dick and then he seemed to reconsider this approach. In a tone honed by years of listless teachers demanding listless responses, he said:  
  
“I liked when you touched me, and that you backed off when I said to, and when you came. I liked making you come.”

Well, that might have been the hottest thing she’d heard in a while. She rallied, trying to pull some sense out of her sex-befuddled brain.

She couldn’t quite yet, so she tipped over on her side, scooting to the side of the bed against the wall, laying on her back. She didn’t quite feel they were in a place to be big vs little-spooning.

He stared at her for a moment, then sat, and pivoted, and slid so he was lying down. Their arms pressed bare against each other, but though the backs of their hands touched, they didn’t intertwine their fingers.

“The first time I did that, it was with a boy from my high school.” Michonne heard herself say into the quiet of the concrete cell. “We’d graduated and gone to different colleges, but he must have been visited on a trip, because we saw each other and just. I missed home so much then, it had meant so much to me to see a face that had known my face from before. We had coffee, I invited him back to my room, my roommates were out, and we had sex.”

“I guess a lot of girls don’t come with their first boyfriends, or their first fucks or whatever, but I’d been touching myself since I was in my early teens, and I knew what I wanted and needed. It didn’t even occur to me to be shy about asking, about _showing_ him. And as for what to do with him, well, everyone in this culture knows how to get a man off. We’re trained from our first blow job joke we overhear at our fathers’ football parties.”

“My pa never had football parties. We didn’t have a TV and he drank at home, since it was cheaper than the bar.” Daryl’s voice was flat, in the way some trauma-survivors’ voices are flat.

“My father didn’t have much time for us, he was busy at his office. He was a doctor in Atlanta. But my brothers…” Michonne felt her entire body start to cool, her mind drifting away from her body. She could see herself lying there, vulnerable, trapped. She couldn’t believe she’d let herself drift into this space, where she wasn’t controlling what was happening around her, where she had opened the gate to questions she still couldn’t answer. 

Daryl however didn’t seem to notice the pause or the uncoordinated way Michonne pulled herself out of the bed by swinging out the foot. He just sat up lazily and looked at her, hands open and up in his lap, face neutral. 

Maybe he had noticed something. Maybe he knew enough not to ask. That was, nice.

She forced herself to stay in the cell. She could feel the slight wind that moved through the corridor flush against her back and tickling under her still-loose shirt, and she let that be the freedom she needed.

“Would you like to try this again? Go further?”  
  
She didn’t know what her tone was with this, it was flat but also interested.

She took the stiffness out of her body, let her hip and shoulder slouch, brought out a crooked smile. She knew she looked smaller than she was in this pose, but it was the best she could do. She needed to get out, get somewhere away for a few minutes to breath that memory away..

“I had fun and we could try more, next time I’m coming through.”

Daryl stood, face showing a cautiousness he’d dropped about when she’d gotten his pants open. He stepped past the normal personal distance, pausing at the next barrier and then pushing through. He was a hip’s a breath from hers, face leaning in. She realized she was holding her breath, and when he brought his hand up to her face, she felt herself lean into it.

He brushed a kiss on her cheek, scruff catching on her cheekbone.

“Yeah, let’s do that.”

—

** Some weeks later **

A week and more and she was gone again. Daryl didn’t pine, but he kept an eye on the gate for her return, volunteering for out-of-fence trips a little less often in case he missed her. He kept the gate guards better-stocked than usual and took to double-checking their ammunition stored outside the walls before finishing his rounds.

She came back with a long rough scrape down her back from a bad fall on her horse escaping a lone walker. Her eyes were clear and final when she told him it had been asphalt and nothing else, so he believed her. When she rode in, he didn’t run to her, but he sidled into the doorway of the medical room once she was getting cleaned up. They made eye contact and she nodded, letting him in to sit on a bucket behind Carol, not saying anything.

He tried to keep his eyes on her face, but couldn’t keep her gaze. She flinched involuntarily from a particular stab of alcohol on her skin and his eyes dropped to her bare shoulder. She kept her eyes on him, but a quirk in her mouth felt like permission not to hold onto that with a death grip. Only then did he let his eyes wander, skimming her muscled shoulder and back. The scrape wasn’t the worst, but it covered a lot of skin. Cuts that made it across the spine always hurt worst than the other kind.

Carol glanced at him as she left, but didn’t comment. Daryl sat on the bucket, edged digging into his ass, fingers gripping tighter and tighter on his knees. Michonne spoke up:  
  
“This ain’t going to work if you’re gonna get sentimental on me.”

“ _What_ ain’t going to work? We’ve fucked once, and not even all the way.” Daryl felt like buckets of mountain creek water had been thrown at his head. His hearing was off, and his blood was running cold down from his neck.

“ _This_. This thing you’re doing. You never at bedside vigil for me before, why the fuck are you startin' now.” Michonne was trying to work her way up to her elbows so she could sit, but the movement arched her back and she slowly lowered herself back down, face screwed up. Her breathing was pushed and she was looking ashy. Daryl didn’t move, didn’t say anything.

They both breathed into the silence, and the sounds of the camp came into the space again. Gnawing of walkers just barely audible through the door, a whiney of the horse, sound of people’s feel walking on the stairs above them, hushed sound of too many voices in too small a space for any privacy. Daryl felt his skin reshape itself to his body and he settled back against the wall, back straight, head-tipped-back, eyes closed, settled in for the duration.

He heard her start to get pissed again, breath coming in short bursts, a bit of a grumble here or here, but then, slowly, her breathing evened out. Daryl kept his eyes closed, and let his mind sort itself. He didn’t often get much of a chance to arrange his thoughts, and he was going to take this one.

Daryl watched the sun set from behind his eyelids. Heard Carol come in to check Michonne, didn’t hear her wake up, heard Carol leave. He moved his hands from his knees to folded in his lap, he leant over his lap to cradle his own head, then sat back up, back Catholic-school-straight.

Just as the last of the light was fading, he heard her shift and he let his eyes ease open. Being closed so long, his pupils were dilated and he could see her shape clearly. She was just easing her eyes open, and when they made eye contact she quirked her lips at him.

“You still here?”  
  
He nodded, but didn't say anything.

“I can’t lie here napping any longer. It smells like a field hospital.” She started to struggle up on her own, face held tight against winces, and he stood, offering a hand to help her balance as she pivoted to sitting, getting her feet under her. The time resting had given her back a chance to cool, body less tight, bandages starting to do their job to hold her together. Her skin looked less thin too.

He stood, holding his stiff arm out and she looked up at him.

They started walking towards the room she used when she was in-camp. She was trying to hold herself stiff as she moved to avoid ripping the forming-scab on her back, but each step was a spurt of agony.

Daryl started talking in a low voice, hoping to keep her distracted:

“Back injuries suck balls. There’s nearly nothing you can do, so you either don’t move and starve, stink, and sweat your way into good health, or you heal slower, but don’t stir-crazy in your own juices.”

She grunted, but didn’t say anything more, focusing on getting one foot at least a foot in front of the other, to increase their pace. She wanted to lie down.

Daryl matched her pace in silence. When they got to her room, the door was too narrow for him couldn’t move through it beside her, and so he hung in the doorway, waiting to see if she needed help. She glanced low over her shoulder and jerked her head inviting him into the room. Daryl fell through the curtain, metal rings complaining and then ringing out as he hastily tried to cover the entirety of the door. At a sound of discomfort from behind him, her turned and rushed to her side.

“Down, boy.” Michonne said, voice tight. But Daryl could hear an undertone of humor. He held her elbow as she eased herself into a sitting position on the bottom bunk.

“There might not be room on this thing for both of us,” she started and pointed a shaky hand upwards to the bunk above hers, saying:  
  
“If you don’t mind bunking up there, I wouldn’t mind the company. And the future help walking to the head.”  
  
Daryl nodded, and got his foot onto the bottom bunk before pausing.

“Not to importune, but do you really want to sleep in your jeans?”

Michonne’s eyes widened a bit, but after a breath she nodded and swung her legs back down. Daryl knelt at her feet, hands mechanical, like he’d spent years undressing people who couldn’t get their combat boots off before bed.

There’s no sensual way to remove socks, so he just did it quickly, but the first chance to take off her jeans that he didn't want to miss.

“You mind if I take my time?” He asked.

“Knock yourself out.” She murmured, already drifting and weaving where she sat.

He unbuttoned and unzipped and then considered his options. He tipped her down onto her back, Michonne already attempting to burrow into her pillow with as few movements as possible. Her hand drifted up to his head, carding his hair and tangling her fingers in it before settling, holding on. With a bit of wiggling and tugging he got the jeans over her hips, but then moved back down to her knees.

It took some doing, but he kept her men’s underwear on. (They didn’t have many choices and men’s briefs tended to last longer than women’s.) He kept moving her jeans off, trying to avoid disturbing her back as much as possible, hooking her heel back into the jean, bracing one against his hip to get the right angle to get the cloth over the bend in her knee.

Eventually, the jeans were in a puddle on the floor. Daryl arranged her legs back on the bed, and then sat on the edge that was still left free. She looked lovely, muscled and scarred and worn in. He liked the way she’d grown her skin back over those old scars around her ankles, the thumb-print dip in her upper hip. He liked how she let her feet flop apart as soon as he set them down.

When his eyes finally drifted up to her face, she had a lazy smile on.

“Come on.” She said, waving him up her body. Careful to only get the sides of his shoes on the bed, Daryl lay down, not touching her, but close enough to smell the disinfectant, and the warm-and-sunny smell of her skin. There was a tang of blood, and a smear of dirt, but for the most part she smelled like a woman who worked outside, occasionally with horses, often with meat.

The hand that had been toying with his hair smacked his shoulder towards her, and he acquiesced, hooking his knee over hers and tucking his arms under his body. He kept stiff, too close to the edge to fully relax, but by inches and by minutes he began to fill the space between them. It was closer than he’d been to another body in weeks and he found a trap-door in his head was opening and all sorts of foolish feelings were streaming out.

—

** A week later **

Her back was healed and their nights together cut short by the sheer discomfort of sharing a single. His bow was waxed and cleaned and strung. She’d been brushing up against him at moments when it was toughest to conceal his arousal. Finally, there was nothing to stop them from trying the next set of sex acts on their list, and Daryl was ready. to. go.

Michonne was too, but she had a couple of things she needed. She made eye-contact with Daryl across the field a few minutes before their planned meeting time, and headed back into the medical section to grab what she’d hidden under a box of sterile linens.

Daryl was pacing anxiously in the cell t the far end of the cleared block where they’d met before, and when Michonne pushed the curtain aside, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her all the way into the room. Her half-grin was wicked and she slipped something into her tight back pocket before backing him against the wall and kissing so hard it felt like biting.

He got a hand under her thigh and was just boosting her up when she patted his chest and backed away, chest heaving but arm held out straight.

“Look what I got—“ she said, reaching into her back pocket.

The late afternoon light was dimming, but Daryl saw the flash of silver of a condom—and that was lube. He grinned and reached out, to take a look at the brand.

“Nothing too fancy, but a little slick will go a long way if we use it right.”

It was one of those sample-sized bottles, no bigger than a travel-toothpaste they’d hand out for free lunch kids at school in their “hygiene packs.” Daryl hadn’t known toothpaste came in any other size until his early teens, when he’d been able to fake his age well enough to do his dad’s liquor runs for him.

Daryl carefully laid the condoms and lube on the high windowsill, looking out over the back field. There were tight bars across it, but it was still a pretty view.

Michonne stepped back, swaying her hips and beckoning with a finger. It was a little over-the-top-coy, but Daryl could see she was excited to be well again, new scars and all. He moved forward, body taking the shape it did on a hunt, so his toes barely made a sound on the floor as he walked. He stepped in and she sat back on the bed, keeping a short distance all the way until she was on her back, thighs around his. He held himself above her, letting her settle in below him, body only touching where her heels dug with increasing insistence into his ass.

He eased his mouth over hers, arm bending beneath her head. He was trying to make this last, but Michonne was not having it. She hooked her heels behind his hips and leveraged herself up, flat of her hips grinding into the press of his cock through his jeans.

That sapped his very last ounce of self-control and he bucked down into her, carrying her hips with him to push against the mattress, bending it under them. She moaned and pushed back on him, and they got into a slow-moving rut. For all the pressure of her heels and hips and lips, her hands were dancing on top of his shirt. He couldn’t understand why she wasn’t diving under, grabbing and pulling the way she clearly wanted to be.

With a chill, he remembered his reaction the last time she tried to touch his back. Caught in a blip of concern about how to explain, he pulled back. Breathing into her hair as she stilled her hips and gulped oxygen, he worked up his courage, then pulled back, outstretched arms above her head.

“You can touch me, wherever,” He said and she nodded, but seemed to be waiting for something.

Balancing on one arm, he grabbed her hand and placed it on his lower back, hitching his shirt up to put her thumb on the biggest knot of scar tissue.

“Belt.” He said.

He slid her hand up, to the 3 raked lines that barely stretched to his floating rips, taking up his entire right-side back.

“Cherry rod.”

He nudged her hand over to encircle his waist, until he felt her fingers on his opposite hip.

“Knife.”

Her eyes widened—“Bar fight.” He turned his head, and huffed a chuckle out. “Merle started it.”

She kept her hand where he left it but brought her other hand up to cup his face. She put her thumb over his lips.

“And I bet you fucking finished it, am I right?”  
  
“Damn right. Dixon boys may not be good for much, but we can hold our own.” She smiled, smaller and tighter than usual, but there.

He dipped down to learn the bow of her mouth for himself. She licked past his lips, pushing, hand still gentle but beginning to explore the shape of his back. She didn’t trace every scar, but neither did she try to avoid them. She traced the lines of his muscles, the hardness of his ribs and spine. And if his scars went over them, she touched them too.

The kiss deepened into something tougher, stronger, and she began to arch up against him. he pushed back, giving her enough friction to get what she needed, twisting his hips to keep it interested. She started to shove his shirt up his back further, and he pulled away to catch his breath.

“We doing this naked this time?”  
  
Her eyes settled on his, her breath gratifyingly rushed.

“We’ve got the time and what passes for privacy this side of the apocalypse. And the more skin the better.”  


“Fine by me,” he said, shifting off of her and getting out of the bed. He stood and felt her eyes on him. He’d never stripped for company, never used the time spent revealing his body for anything but the most utilitarian of reasons, but he wondered this time.

He pulled his vest back, arching his back a little as he did it, and her intake of breath did more than any words could. He hooked his thumbs under his waistband, easing the button through the hole and pulling it down. At the last minute, he decided to leave his boxers on, since he’d put them on for this special occasion. Something felt too vulnerable in standing on the concrete prison cell floor, being the only one without clothes on.

Michonne smiled and wetted her lips, and he couldn’t tell if it was a coy gesture or a genuine need. Either way, it looked good on her. She shone with interest and her body was a landscape of intended action, ready to touch and be touched.

She pushed herself up, crowding his space but not touching. She curved her hand around the outside of his arm, pulling down, and he felt a gout of tension follow the pressure of her fingers and leave him. She did it again on the other arm, then slid her fingers between his, squeezing at the bases and pulling away, until the tips of his fingers were trapped between hers, the only part of them touching.

She released him and the cool air seemed to take a lot more of his warmth as it moved by than it had a moment before. She crossed her hands in front of herself and raised her shirt away from her body, pulling it over her head. Daryl followed his knees and fell, only to ghost a breath over her exposed hipbone, eyes pouring into hers as she dropped the shirt behind herself. 

She nodded.

Daryl pressed his mouth to the firm round of her stomach, breathing in her hardworking smell. He inched a lick out and she gasped, hunching around the sensation, like she could keep it if she only surrounded it. He grinned and did it again, licking a wide wet stripe across her body. She grinned and swatted him across the top of his head.

“Stop that, you’re no cat.”

“Well, what if I was an owl?” Daryl said in a fit of whimsey. Then he made a dumb face that made little Judith giggle, and gave his worst “hoo-hoo!”

Michonne collapsed in his lap, a fit of giggles taking her control over her legs. She caught herself on his shoulders as his arms wrapped under her ass, and she balanced, weight held just above him, bodies pressed tight where he took part of her weight against his chest. She let out a breathy laugh and looked down into his face, lit from the inside by a small smile. She took some of her weight back, and lowered herself onto his bent knees, her knees going on either side of his. She was still above him, and so when she leaned in to kiss him, warmth a round ball in her lower stomach, her hand drifted up to feel the stretch of the skin over his neck.

He pushed into her, valuing the warmth she brought, the slickness of her mouth in his, the swell of her ass as it rested on his knees. She was bracing herself on his shoulders to get the best angle to explore his mouth, and so his hands were free. He began tracing his way around her hips, using the backs of his fingers and tracing every curve and dip. In a rush of bravado, he moved his hands around between them, palms facing her, and began sliding them up towards her breasts.

She gasped when his fingertips touched her under-breast and she pulled her torso back, her head dropped to his shoulder, her breath warm on his shoulder. He turned his hands so his palms cupped her breasts and pressed in, feeling the soft weight of them. He slide his other four fingers around the side, until they just got close to her aureolas, then eased away. Her frustrated sigh was motivation enough to keep things going slowly.

But Michonne wasn’t having that. She gripped his hand, cupping it over her breasts and squeezing his fingers together over her nipple. Her head fell back, but she still continued, until the pressure he was excerpting was more than he would have been comfortable with himself. She held their hands there, and began rocking, finding friction against his stomach, using her legs to lift herself up and down his barely-covered cock.

He had limited motion in this position, but encouraged her where he could, rocking into her, the hand not in hers moving to her back, cupping the sway of a hip, pressing her down and closer. She started setting a harsh, pulsing rhythm but then pulled up, pulling the heat between her legs away from his body, letting his hand drop away from her breast.

“Bed,” she said firmly, and at his pointed look at her pants, she hooked her fingers in the waistband, slid the button out, and stood to pull them off. She left herself entirely naked, and without any form of self-consciousness—nor any need for it—she backed up until she hit the bed, eyes clear in his. He stood as well, beginning to yank down the last of his clothing, his one scrap of underwear left, when she held up a hand.

She beckoned him forward, and he eased her way, walking slowly, unsure if he felt uncomfortable with the exposure of if he was drawing this out for the fun of it. When he arrived within her touching distance, the warm speed of her hands stat led him and he jumped a little.

“I want to see you.” she said, mouth getting closer to his exposed stomach.

He nodded and slow as breathing, she eased his underwear off of him. Her eyes didn't light up with joy, or fear, or disgust, but a low-light of careful appreciation and banked consideration filled them, and he was grateful for it, for the solidity of it. It was something he could always expect from her. She steadied him as he stepped out of the leg holes, and then guided her hand to his balls as he was standing straight again.

It wasn’t like he could forget the sensation of another’s hand touching him in that way, but every instant of it was sparking-new. The exact patterns of her callouses as they roughed the delicate skin in the slightest of ways, the exact curve of her palm over his foreskin, the exact temperature of his skin as it brushed against hers. All of these felt new and entirely their own in that moment.

She smiled and then eased her hand into a circle, bringing it up and down his cock in a swift rhythm, pulling him close and locking her ankles behind his knees. He shuddered at the sensation and it only took a few strokes before he was crowding her back, as she moved on the bed kneeling between her thighs. With a bit of work, they were both along the bed, her back on the grandmother quilt. 

He held himself above her, free hand trailing up and down her torso, brushing against her nipples and ribs and stroking along her collarbone. She arched into his touch, and he gave a small smile at the effect. She hooked a heel behind his ass and got the leverage to pull herself against his cock, hot and full. He gasped and lowered himself, reaching to the side of the bed where the lube and condom had landed.

“Let me,” she said, and drizzled enough from the small tube into her palm. She began rubbing herself, easing the warming liquid between her folds, face serious and eyes on his. He watched her, as a odd ripple moved its way up her body. Her eyes drifted shut and he looked down to where she was buried two fingers deep into herself. His eyes glazed over a bit—that was a sight to remember. He came back to the condom wrapper’s sharp edges digging into his palm and an impatient look on Michonne’s face.

He knelt back, getting an even between view of her slicking herself up, cock tapping against his stomach. He ripped the condom out, and rolled it down over himself. It was sticky and a little unpleasant, but another glance at Michonne overwhelmed him and he forgot it. He moved back over her, kissing his way up her side, over to her breast, then down her breastbone. She smiled and pulled her fingers out of herself, only to find his dick and begin to guide it into her. The feeling of her walls around his head was enough to bring him to his elbow, face buried in her hair. She encouraged him on, writhing herself down on him, and he felt her move around him while he was inside her.

He pushed forward and with slide, he was bottomed out, entirely engulfed by her. It was an amazing difference from just hands or just mouths. It was like being whole and empty, sung to and singing, hunting and being hunted. She was warm and all of him felt warm with her. Her hands flickered over his back, body making aborted little motions, settling into the feeling of being full and filling, as together as two separate beings could be. He came back to himself enough to begin moving, each pull back exquisite but so lonely, each push in so overwhelming.

It wasn’t long before their playing with different paces, her tightening around him on a rhythm, him torquing his hips to brush against her clit at just the right angle, until all of it built into a much more primal dance, a smoother push-and-pull of motion and emotion. She bucked into him, arms holding him, and he into her, face close and sharing breath. 

“I’m close,” she said, her voice distant with pleasure and want. He nodded and pushed into her with a little more force, bringing their hips together, hand moving down to grip her breast. Her hand joined his, pulling tight on her nipple and with a gasp she came, writhing into him, bringing him along with her, flares rising and riding their way from his hips to his entire body. Everything went white and all-colored and staticy and as silent as a dawn-meadow. She quieted, the odd flutter gripping him inside her, and after a moment he reached down to grip the condom and pulled out.

He tied it off, dropping it on the wrapper and trying to remind himself to pick it up later, he looked at her. Her thighs fell loosely apart, and he could see where he’d been minutes before. Her face was lax, mouth a bit open, eyes closed. She looked blissed out. He put a hand on her ankle and her eyes opened, smiling into his. She beckoned with her chin and he climbed back up, leg over hers, hand across her belly. She raised her hand and began to play with his fingers, feeling out his calluses and the soft places between his fingers.

He trailed his fingers over the hard places on her palm, the thin skin over her inner wrist. She took a breath and spoke:

“Any questions? Things that were particularly good, things not to repeat?”

He grunted into her shoulder and hid his eyes in her hair.

“I’m gonna sleep on it.” She laughed a little too loud, and patted his hand.

“Sure.”

—

The sun set over the prison, touching the scalps of dead walkers. It trailed over the graves of the fallen, the graves of those who’d died on the road and whose bodies still walked. It lit the eyes of the pigs, the horse, protected by those who lived inside. It highlighted the top-edges of the plants, the feed crops that might keep them from a few extra runs a month, might keep them all a night safer, and the footprints of those who tended them. It outlined the building itself, the broken wall, the vine-knotted fence, the sign declaring what it used to be. The light made the deep shadows of dozens of footprints in the dirt of the drive. It showed the practice range, the pitted cans. 

And it showed the fine hairs on a man’s arm as it lay over a woman’s belly, the curve of his muscles earned protecting others. It showed a woman’s fingers around his, scarred from years of work with a sword and relaxed for this moment. The light showed these things for a moment, and then faded, leaving them to the quiet and cool dark.


End file.
